


waiting for you to make the move

by mmtion



Series: tumblr prompts [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Museum AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 12:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7640263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmtion/pseuds/mmtion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: 'We were each other's first and it's been years but I just ran into you and you're still great and I kinda want to show you how much better I am now.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	waiting for you to make the move

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr, but I felt kinda dirty not putting it here, so.  
> Also, this was only going to be 2000 words - I'm working on brevity, I swear.

“Professor Allen?” One of the kids asks, raising his hand and struggling a little with the phonetics in ‘fess’. “Is that a star?“

Barry follows the boy’s gaze, and smiles. He bends down to address the group and to make sure they can all see the diagram behind him. “Good call, Jacob,” he says, quickly reading the kid’s stuck-on label and scrawled, felt-tip writing. “Actually, that’s an atom. But I agree, it does look similar to those solar systems we saw earlier on the tour, huh?”

He should mention: he isn’t technically a professor.

Barry started volunteering at Central City’s Science Museum in his second year in college, mostly just to put something on his resume and to get extra credit. But then he graduated and found that he’d been putting in so many hours, they offered to employ him full-time. He continued working at the museum all through his Master’s, and is currently working on his PhD. He knows this museum like the back of his hand, and considers himself to be pretty good at giving tours by now.

He loves working with kids. He’d never considered it before volunteering, but he enjoys their fresh outlook and enthusiasm, loves being able to rediscover displays and facts he knows off by heart through their eyes.

“Ah-tom,” Jacob repeats, a little spell bound, especially when Barry leans back to press the button and set off the light display. “Is that as big as a star?”

“Actually,” Barry leans in to whisper, as if it’s a big secret, “It’s really, really small.”

“How small?” Another of the kids pipes up, sounding a little suspicious.

Barry twists his lips, trying to think of a good metaphor. He knows the formula, but somehow he doubts his tour group would be much impressed with that. He spots something in the corner of his eye, and then stands, inspiration striking him. “Okay, everyone follow me. Let’s find out, shall we?”

Some of the parents, watching from a distance or using the distraction to explore the museum for themselves, follow the group as Barry leads them to the sandbox table used to hide plastic fossils in.

“Everyone, try and grab one grain of sand,” Barry instructs. To demonstrate, he presses just the tip of his finger into the sand, and lifts it, holding out his victory. The children struggle a little and he does have to quickly stop one kid trying to eat the sand, but eventually, they’re all standing around the box with one finger held out flat. “Okay. Now, remember Beth asked how small an atom is?”

“Is it as small as the sand?” one child asks, and they all look suitably impressed.

“Not quite,” Barry replies. “Even smaller. Can anyone guess how many atoms I could fit in this single grain?”

“Ten!”

“A hundred!”

Barry grins. “Not quite. It’s over a trillion.”

As they all start to either protest (“That’s not even a real word!”) or discuss it animatedly amongst themselves, Barry can’t help the genuine smile. He remembers being that small, watching scientists on TV and reading books with the fascination he sees reflected in their eyes. He’s not always lucky enough to get such a good group and will just as easily get kids who are bored or tired or mean. But it’s nearing midday now, and he hasn’t had any trouble with the groups so far today.

He checks his watch, and claps his hands together. “Okay kids, I think that wraps up the tour!”

Some of them groan in dismay, which is gratifying, but he lets them go back to their parents. It’s his lunch break now, and sure enough, there’s Cisco, peeking around a display on water to check he’s done with the tour.

“Dude!” Cisco nudges his arm with his soda cup. “Guess what?”

“You spilt Coke on my shirt,” Barry frowns down at the small stain instead of guessing.

“Okay, I’ll tell you. There’s a new volunteer,” Cisco confides as they start walking towards the cafeteria, manoeuvring their way through the throngs of museum visitors.

“So?” Barry asks. It’s hardly an infrequent occurrence; they get new teenagers desperate for fillers on their college application or the recently retired every other week.

Cisco holds up a finger. “I’ve met her. She’s our age, she’s working in the bookshop, she’s pretty hot, and she has a part-time job as well as this.”

Well, that does make things interesting. Barry, Cisco, Caitlin and Jesse are always looking to add to their small group of friends, made up of twenty-somethings doing this for passion rather than a lack of anything else in their lives. Cisco moved to Central City for a part-time engineering position, Jesse is a resident expert on the physics displays while Caitlin is a volunteer who helps the medical science section, while also working part-time in a local practice. They make up the majority of Barry’s non-college friends, and dissuade any fears he had about being bored at this place.

"Well, what’s this new volunteer’s name? Have you met her?” Barry asks, a little bemused.

He turns his head by chance as Cisco struggles with the syllables, saying something about flowers. That’s how he catches sight of her, sees her smiling at some member of the public, with those eyes and god, he’s already mentioned it, but that smile.

It’s her.

“Iris something,” Cisco says, confirming what Barry sees with his own eyes. “It began with a W, I’m sure-”

“Iris West?” Barry offers, a little faintly.

“Yeah, that’s it. How’d you know?”

Iris West. The same Iris he went to high school with and had an all-consuming crush on throughout aforementioned high school.

The same Iris he lost his virginity to at the end of high school, just before they went away to college, and then never really saw again.

Of all the people in this wide world, she’s the new volunteer recruit, and will be working with him. Cisco even wants to be friends with her. This is simultaneously the best thing and the worst thing that could have happened. Barry’s so busy internally running around in a circle yelling that he’s isn’t really watching where he’s walking.

And, well, that’s how Barry gets brained by the stuffed, life-size replica of a Dodo.

It’s not his finest moment.

-

Cisco makes him go the medical office, claiming that he probably has a concussion. Barry is too busy protesting to notice whether Iris saw his fall or not (although considering his rather loud yelp, he’d bet she did). Cisco manages to wrestle him inside the small room, used for minor accidents and occasional asthma attacks that happen in the museum.

Caitlin’s already there, treating a kid with a nosebleed. “She just gets so overexcited by the dinosaurs,” the mother is saying as Caitlin dabs tissues at the poor girl’s nose.

“I like the T-Rex’s,” mutters the small girl.

Cisco forces Barry in the seat next to her, and Caitlin frowns in surprise. “Professor Allen?” She asks, keeping up with the tour guide’s titles in front of the child. “What have you done?”

“He had a fight with the Dodo,” Cisco explains. Barry makes a small grumbling noise, but can’t really refute the point.

“Ah,” replies Caitlin bemusedly.

“Who won?” asks the girl.

Barry sighs, and admits, to her and Cisco’s ensuing laughter, “The Dodo did.”

After the girl’s nose stops bleeding and she’s ushered away by her mother (Caitlin gives her a dinosaur-shaped lollipop for her troubles), Caitlin turns to Barry, her hands on her hips. “Just because I’m a first-aid officer doesn’t mean you need to come up with excuses to come see me,” she says, teasing gently.

“It was an accident,” Barry protests. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“How do you not notice a freakin’ giant prehistoric bird in front of you?” Cisco asks at the same time Caitlin points out, “You know this museum like the back of your hand, you shouldn’t even need to be looking where you’re going.”

“I just wasn’t concentrating,” Barry says, hoping they won’t pursue the point.

But he should know his friends better than that. Cisco narrows his eyes as Caitlin reaches for some antiseptic and cotton wool to dab on the bruise already blossoming across Barry’s temple. “How do you know Iris West, anyway?”

Barry has never been much good at poker. He feels his cheeks colour even as he tries, “I don’t.”

Cisco points at him, jabbing him the chest and ignoring Barry’s yelp of surprise. “You knew her second name.”

“I guessed?”

“Barry,” Caitlin says in a pacifying tone. “Just tell us now. You know Cisco’s not going to let it go.”

Barry lets out a rough exhale, averting his gaze. He mumbles something, and Cisco obnoxiously cups his hand to his ear. Barry huffs again, and says, louder, “She was my… first.”

“First what?” Cisco demands.

But Caitlin makes a small ‘o’ shape with her mouth, and elbows Cisco in the side as a hint. (Cisco has always appreciated subtlety like that.)

“My first…” Barry says, hesitating for the right word. “Um, my first time.”

Cisco blinks as the penny drops. “You lost your virginity to the new volunteer?”

That doesn’t quite encompass it, even as Barry’s carefully nodding and feeling his face flame. Iris West had lived on his street. They had grown up together, walking to school each day together despite having very different social circles when they arrived at school. And he was in love with her for probably all that time. They had spent their last summer before college together, sharing their fears and dreams and staying up late. Experimenting with stolen alcohol from their parent’s cupboards and planning the adventures they were going to go on. Iris was going to Star City College, while Barry was staying in Central City; maybe it was this that brought them suddenly much closer, the fact that they would no longer see each other every day. One night, things…happened.

Cisco still looks like he’s processing. “Wow. She’s really hot, Barry.”

“I know,” Barry groans. Caitlin wipes at his head with some cool liquid that does something to ease the throbbing. “I can’t believe I just bumped into a display in front of her.”

Cisco snorts. “You did more than fall over, Barry, that was a wipe-out-” He trails off at Caitlin’s stern look, and Barry hides another groan in his hands.

“I can’t believe she’s here,” Barry says, almost to himself. They’d never spoken after that one night, a week before they were leaving for college. She’d never come round, or called him, and he figured that was it. It was obvious how he felt, so it seemed up to her to decide what that night meant - and apparently, it didn’t mean much at all.

It took him a year to try and move on from her, to start dating the new girls he met in college and at the museum, though seeing her again takes him straight back to being sixteen and in love.

“It’ll be fine,” Caitlin soothes. “Maybe she’s just as embarrassed to see you again too?”

“I doubt it,” replies Barry. Even in kindergarten he remembers her as social and confident, kind and well-liked by everyone.

“We’ll see. Let’s go for lunch anyway,” she suggests.

“Yeah,” Cisco says. “Wells isn’t going to let you go home on injury time, anyway.”

So they make their way to the cafeteria, and Barry keeps his eyes firmly on his own path, keeping a careful eye out for any more extinct birds that might harm him.

But Barry must have pissed off a deity in a previous life, because while Jesse has reserved them their usual table, she’s also apparently invited a guest.

Barry can’t exactly hide behind Caitlin and Cisco, considering he has at least half a foot on both of them, but he makes a valiant effort. They get their food, Barry extremely conscious of the familiar face which is somehow even more beautiful than his memory provided, and then go to the table. Barry has a sudden, horrible thought, and hisses out, a few tables before they reach Jesse, “Cisco, please don’t say anything.”

But Cisco doesn’t reply, just sends him a sly look that makes Barry frantically wish there was a way to time travel and never become friends with him in the first place.

They sit down, and Jesse starts off the introductions with her usual infectious buoyancy. “Iris, this is Cisco, Caitlin, and Barry.”

Their eyes meet, and Barry watches as hers flicker just as quickly away. Barry is sure he saw the recognition in her eyes, but she very deliberately only smiles at Cisco and Caitlin.

“Guys,” Jesse continues, unaware of the tension and second-guessing currently filling the air. “This is Iris. She’s new to the team, volunteering at the bookshop.”

“Nice to meet you,” Caitlin says, with an admirably perfect greeting tone, pleasant and just distant enough to keep up appearances. “So what brings you here?”

Barry knows he should probably be playing it a bit cooler than he is doing, should be just eating his food and trying to appear as disinterested with her as she is apparently with him. But he’s trying to figure her out; sure, he expected things to be weird, but she’s literally not looking at him, so obviously that even Jesse is starting to frown a little in confusion.

“I had some free time,” Iris explains. “I have a news blog, and now I’ve been able to expand and employ some people to help out, I figured I’d give back to the community a little.”

“Really?” Cisco asks. “You didn’t want to go teach inner city kids?”

Iris lets out a little laugh at his scepticism; it’s the exact same laugh Barry remembers, if a little stilted. “Well, I spent so much time here as a kid, to be honest. It was free fun for me, and I figured that I should help keep it free for the next generation. I’m only starting off with a couple of shifts a week.”

It’s an annoyingly perfect reason. The thing is, Barry remembers exactly how much time Iris spent in this museum because he was usually the one going with her; it’s actually the reason why he’d chosen the damn museum to volunteer in originally.

But she’s still not even glancing at him, in a way that’s now too deliberate for Barry to just be imagining it.

He doesn’t understand. And then horror strikes him with the most likely explanation, both for why she’s ignoring him now and why she never spoke to him again after that night.

He must have been terrible.

Like, really awful in bed. He’s never examined that night too closely, probably because it was too painful to think about how happy he had been. He’s always kept the memories of her gasps, her body, the way she’d smiled at him and the way she’d kissed him.

But now, thinking more clearly, he remembers not really controlling his limbs, and sweating, and shaking a little. He’s never had any complaints from girlfriends afterwards (in fact, he’s taken pride in always producing orgasmic results for them, ensuring their pleasure before his, asking them and making detailed mental notes about what they liked), but that was his first time. He was bound to be a little awkward, but maybe he never realised it was bad for her.

He sinks down in his chair and can’t even bring himself to look at her, picking at his food and making the occasional non-committal noise for the conversation. At one point, Jesse kicks his shin underneath the table and gives him a look as if to imply how rude he’s being, but he can’t bring himself to care.

The rest of the day passes in a similar mood; even a child holding his hand and pointing out her favourite types of molecules throughout a tour can’t cheer him up.

He manages to avoid her until the end of his shift, changing his route around the museum a little so they don’t go anywhere near the bookshop section. Cisco and Caitlin are working an hour later than him, and so Barry gets to walk back to his apartment alone, which he’s glad for. He doesn’t think he could stand all the questions Cisco would be sure to have.

-

He goes for a jog to try and clear his mind, but somehow he ends up taking a route that goes through his old neighbourhood. He passes his parents’ house and even the West’s house. Joe’s on the drive, and Barry slows a little on the pavement.

“Mr West,” he greets warmly.

“Barry!” Joe looks surprised, but pleased. He’s remained friends with Nora and Henry, so he certainly hasn’t dropped out of Barry’s life the same way Iris had. “What are you doing this far out of your way?”

Barry shrugs. He’s ran farther on his jogs, so he’s not too sweaty or out of breath, but he usually goes north rather than south into the suburbs. “Don’t know,” he says. He’s always liked Joe, always felt comfortable with him, and so he admits, “I think my legs had more of a plan than my mind.”

“Uh-huh,” Joe says, and he looks a little too knowing for Barry’s comfort. The feeling of trepidation is confirmed when Joe comments, a shade too lightly, “I hear Iris started volunteering at the museum today.”

Barry looks at his feet, as if that’ll hide his blush. He’d always suspected Joe knew about his ridiculous crush on his daughter, but just always had the kindness not to mention it. “Yeah, I thought I saw her.”

“Hm.” Joe exhales, watching Barry with his detective’s eye. “Well, I’ve got to get inside. Maybe I’ll see you at your parent’s barbeque next month?”

“Sure,” says Barry, because no-one grills a steak like Joe West, and he was planning to go anyway.

He goes to bed early, feeling as if he’s revisiting awkward adolescence years, obsessing over Iris West, and even manages to trip over the same furniture he’s owned for over a year.

He just feels it a little unfair that she’s still mad at him. Even if he was terrible, she should at least talk to him. He doesn’t endlessly talk about comic books anymore, and ignoring today’s Dodo incident, he has an admirable control over his own limbs now - some might say he has grown into his gangly frame. He goes to the gym! He has his own apartment. And, most importable, he has Sex Experience, which, quite honestly, deserves the capital letters.

He wonders whether there’s a subtle way he can prove that to her. Maybe if she knows how much he’s improved, she’ll be able to forgive him, maybe even be friends with him again. Really, that was the thing that always hurt him the most, the loss of their friendship.

He needs a plan. No more mooching around – if anything, he’s a little mad as well that she’s ignoring him. And it was five years ago! The very least he deserves is a reaction, whether good or bad.

He’s not hoping to seduce her or anything, and of course he respects her choice to avoid him. That’s her right, he supposes. But that doesn’t mean he can’t make implications in her direction, or maybe get her at least to acknowledge he was only bad because it was his first time! He barely knew the basics, never mind how to make it good. If she’s so sure that he’s a selfish lover, he should at least try to prove her wrong, surely.

So the next day, his spirit is renewed, and he refuses to sulk about it any longer. Plan: Prove Sex Status is going into immediate effect.

-

Caitlin loans him some concealer for his bruise. Someone, and he has a very strong suspicion that it’s Cisco, has added a label underneath the information plaque for the Dodo: ‘Rest in Peace Barry Allen, 1989-2016’.

The day goes on, and he manages to concentrate on his tours for the morning (although some of the kids do demand to prod his bruise, cooing at its gnarly throbbing.)

He makes it through to lunchtime, and makes sure to get an ice-cold can of soda to hold against his hot forehead, along with his usual piece of fruit and sandwich. He joins Cisco and Jesse at the table, who are already there with Iris, who’s chatting animatedly about her time at the bookshop so far.

“-and so then I got to talk to this teenage girl about Amelia Earhart, and…” she trails off as she notices Barry sit down, avoiding looking at him as she coughs awkwardly and finishes, “Um, so, yeah. It’s been fun.”

“Did you have any trouble with the computers?” Barry tries, figuring that attempting basic conversation should be the first step to rebuilding their friendship, probably. “I remember when I first started-”

“No,” Iris replies, politely enough in her tone but still cutting him off.

Silence settles over the group, her clear discomfort with his presence making conversation difficult. Cisco coughs awkwardly, and says, with admirable effort, “Barry, I like your shoes.”

“Thanks,” Barry says, not wanting to have more blame for how stilted the atmosphere is. Then he has a lightning strike of inspiration, and says, “You know, I actually really struggle to find nice shoes.”

“Oh?” Jesse says. “How come?”

“I have big feet,” Barry says, straight-faced, watching Iris for a reaction. “Like, _huge_.”

“Huh,” says Cisco into the quiet that meets that particular revelation.

“Yeah,” Barry says. “I mean, I’ve actually had old girlfriends complaining about what large feet I had.” He’s not even trying to be subtle, but so far Jesse seems to be the only one who’s cottoned on to the innuendo, judging by her grossed out expression.

“I never heard them say anything,” Cisco wonders aloud.

“Well, they didn’t really complain,” backpedals Barry, realising that implying freakishly large…body parts might be off-putting. “Just commented on it. In fact, some of them _really_ liked, uh, my big feet.”

“Dude,” Jesse says, pulling a face.

Barry gives up on that trail of conversation when Cisco starts asking why he’s dated multiple girls with foot fetishes, and Iris doesn’t seem to be reacting. He also remembers that Iris has already seen his dick, so implying about its size is probably useless.

Back to the drawing board, then.

-

He tries to find out from his friends at the museum whether Iris had said anything to them about why she apparently hates him. But Caitlin’s too polite, Jesse won’t betray her new friend’s confidence (though she later admits Iris denies ignoring Barry at all) and Cisco just shrugs and says, “I don’t know, dude. I asked her about the worst sexual experience she ever had, and for some reason she thought _I_ was being was weird.”

So next lunch break, he decides to up the ante.

At this point, he just wants a reaction, or at least some acknowledgement of their history. He just can’t believe ten years of friendship could be so quickly destroyed by one sexual experience.

He gets to the cafeteria and sees Iris is sitting alone. He knows Caitlin isn’t working today, so Jesse and Cisco must be breaking at a different hour. He avoids looking at her while he collects his food, and he decides to grab a coffee on impulse. When he’s paid and holding his full lunch tray, he’s pleased to see she either hasn’t noticed him, or has but has decided not to run away. The latter becomes obvious when he lands his tray down on the table and she doesn’t react in a way that must be deliberate.

He slides the coffee across to her. “I brought you coffee,” he says.

She turns the page of her book and doesn’t look up as she asks, tonelessly, “I don’t drink coffee.”

That is a blatant lie, since he knows she started drinking espresso at fourteen, and she was drinking a double-shot cappuccino yesterday at lunch. But he doesn’t comment, and says, “Well, we can just use it as decoration, then.”

He thinks he sees the corner of her lip twitch, but she wordlessly turns another page.

He tilts his head to look at the cover. “You’re reading H.G Wells?”

“No,” she says, which is probably meant to be sarcastic considering the huge, red, lettering of ’ _War of the Worlds_ ’ in her hand, but her tone is still carefully blank.

“Right,” says Barry. Fine. If she doesn’t want to at least be civil, he’ll have to get a reaction from her another way. He’ll have to prove his sexual improvement non-verbally.

He picks up the peach from his tray.

He takes a big bite, stretching his mouth over the soft fruit and noisily slicing his teeth through the juicy flesh. He suckles slightly, and then chews on the bite, juice smeared across his lips. He chances a glance at her, but her gaze is focused on her book.

His eyes dart around to check no-one else is looking in the direction, and then runs his tongue flat along the section he’s just bitten.

“I just love peaches,” he says, fighting not to break into slightly hysterical laughter at the absurdity of this plan.  This is not the most brilliant idea he’s had, he’ll admit that, but it’s not particularly easy to artificially create opportunities to prove his oral talent. (And, let him be clear, it was an old girlfriend who referred to it as a talent, thank you very much.)

He takes another bite of the peach, this time a smaller mouthful as he lets his lips move slowly over the peach. He finishes the fruit in a similar matter, trying to find the balance between genuinely making out with the fruit, and showing off his tongue’s dexterity.

Okay, he’s not going to look back on this moment with great pride, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

She doesn’t look up from her book once, but he does notice, with some satisfaction as he slowly, gratuitously, sucks the juice off each finger, that she hasn’t turned a single page since he started eating the peach.

Even though she leaves the table to get back to work without saying another word, he counts it as a victory.

-

But by the two-week mark, Barry hasn’t managed to tease a word out of Iris, whether good or bad. They manage to converse well enough in the group at lunch breaks, but never directly to each other. Barry has even tried to start an impromptu game of ‘Never Have I Ever’, to no avail.

He’s close to giving up, and is resigning himself to frosty and awkward silences when he’s waiting for his next tour group to gather around him that afternoon. He’s checking off names on his list when a woman comes up to him, and he almost drops his clipboard in shock at the recognition.

“Patty Spivot,” he says, her dirty blonde hair and strong jawline unmistakeable.

“Barry Allen,” she replies with a coy smile and twinkling eyes.

He had met Patty on one of the rare nights he took up Cisco’s offer to go out and hit up the local clubs. They had ended up making out in one of the booths for most of the night, but he had left with only her name, and not her number. He could have googled her, or found her on Facebook, but it seemed stalkerish, and too eager, so he’d never chased her up, despite how pretty she was.

“So you want a tour?” he asks, unable to help the flirt of his tone. Maybe this is exactly what he needs, a perfect distraction from Iris.

“Well,” she says around a small smile. “My niece and nephew do.”

He hides his embarrassment at not even noticing the children by her side by crouching down to talk to them directly. The girl is about thirteen, judging by her height and bored expression, and the boy about seven. They both have Patty’s eyes, but with dark brown hair instead of blonde. “You excited for the tour?” The little boy nods, while the teenage girl rolls her eyes, which is pretty par for the course in Barry’s experience. “Well, we’re going to set off in about five minutes. Can I ask what your names are, so I can add you to my list?”

He writes down their answers, Freddie and Olivia, and then straightens. “Well, I hope you’ll enjoy the tour,” he says, directed at the children despite his eye contact with Patty and the knowing smirk she gives him.

He manages to stay professional through most of the tour, ignoring the way Patty watches him rather than even glancing at the exhibits, and focuses on the children in his group. He ends the tour at the insect display, not an unusual decision on his part considering it gives some of the parents a chance to take their potentially arachnophobic children away before they see the dead bird-eater spider on display.

The insect section also happens to be opposite, and in clear view of, the bookshop. But that just means the children get to direct all that enthusiasm gained from the tour to buying books, rather than the gift shop full of plastic dinosaurs and stationery a bit further along in the museum.

He watches as Patty’s niece and nephew go to her, and then go into the bookshop, apparently having gotten her permission. He watches as she observes them leave, and then turns to him, walking closer.

“So, Professor Allen,” she teases.

He smiles, a tinge bashfully. “Well, it’s nothing official.”

“That’s good, then” she says, her eyes dancing coquettishly. “Because I heard academics never get out. They’re very boring, apparently.”

He plays along, thinks he can guess what she’s getting at by her expression and the lilt to her voice. “No, I’m definitely not the academic type. In fact, I, personally, love going out to dinner.”

“Really?”

He goes for broke. “Especially with beautiful women.”

She grins, clearly pleased. But then he catches sight of something - or more accurately, someone - behind her, walking around the bookshop. He catches Iris’ gaze, knows she’s looking straight at him just as surely as she must know he’s looking at her.

He’s barely listening as Patty says something else, about him calling her later that week. He couldn’t have planned this any better, and as Patty hands him a small slip of paper with her number written on it, he makes sure Iris sees him take the paper and slip it into the upper pocket of his costume lab coat.

He watches her gaze go hard, and he can’t be imagining the way she turns away, a shade too stiffly to be as unaffected as she’s pretending.

He says to Patty, though his eyes are watching Iris walk away, “Yeah, that sounds great”

-

The following stages in The Sex Proficiency Plan aren’t particularly successful or dignified:

“Just, try to bring it up in front of her.”

“Barry, man, I love you, okay?” Cisco emphasises this by clasping each of Barry’s shoulders. “But there is no way that I am referring to you, in private or in public or in front of our new coworker, as a ‘qualified sex professor’.”

“But-”

“No. Don’t make me slap you.”

-

So the plan is progressing. Not particularly successfully, but, still, progressing.

Then his boss lets him know that someone from Central City Picture News is coming to do a puff piece on the museum, and Barry’s been chosen to peddle the volunteer aspect of it.

He does wonder why they aren’t having Iris answer the questions, considering she’s the one with the journalistic experience, but whatever. It’s fine; he figures the worst case scenario is that he spends an hour giving dull, rehearsed answers, and then they spell his name wrong in the article.

Except that is so _not_ the worst case scenario, which Barry quickly realises when Linda Park enters the reception holding a tape recorder and a CCPN name badge.

She stops at the sight of him, clearly not expecting to be interviewing him either.

He swallows. He and Linda went on a couple of dates a year or so ago, and it didn’t exactly end well.

(In fact, it ended on the third date, both of them topless, interrupted in the middle of things getting hot and heavy, by two pigeons that found their way through Barry’s open window. Linda left after an hour of both of them running around trying to shoo the birds back out, with feathers in her hair and no promise of calling him again. The only contact they’d had was the brief text she sent him confirming she hadn’t contracted bird flu.)

The last thing he needs is for Iris to find out about it. He’s trying to prove his sexual competence, not his history of including flying vermin in the bedroom, however accidental it was.

“Barry,” Linda greets.

“Hey, Linda,” he smiles weakly. “Um.”

“Yeah,” she agrees.

“Well,” he says, Adam’s Apple bobbing on a gulp. “Shall we?”

He takes her around the museum, giving short, stilted answers to her equally stiff questions. Barry isn’t sure what he did to apparently acquire this curse of reappearing past lovers, but so far, he’s not enjoying it.

They reach the cafeteria, and Barry lets out a sigh. “The plan was to introduce you to some of the other volunteers, and my friends are on a lunch break, so.” He bites his lip. “Linda-”

But she’s speaking the same time, “Barry, look-”

They both stop. Barry gestures for her to go on.

“Barry,” she says. “Look, I’m over what happened between us. It’s okay.”

“It is?” Barry asks, surprised.

She lets out a little laugh. “Yeah. I mean, I’ve only been awkward because you were! So, look, let’s just move on. I know everyone says this, but I really bet we could be friends.”

His face breaks into a relieved smile. “Yeah, I’d like that.” She holds out her hand and he shakes it. “Cool. Well, then, _friend_ , you want to come over to meet some of my other friends?”

She laughs. “Yeah, definitely.” They turn into the cafeteria, and Barry spots the usual gang around the usual table, lifting his hand in a wave.

Linda follows his gaze. “Oh, Iris is on her lunch break!” She sounds pleased, and Barry’s blood freezes in his veins.

“You know her?” he asks.

“Yeah, she used to work at CCPN. I knew she was volunteering here, but she didn’t mention which days she was doing.”

Barry halts, and tugs on Linda’s arm to make her stop as well before they get within hearing distance of his friends. “Linda,” he says, a touch desperately. “You know how we’re friends now? And I’m introducing you to my other friends, who don’t necessarily know everything about me.”

She rolls her eyes. “Relax, Barry. I won’t tell them anything. I don’t exactly like people knowing I fought a pigeon naked.”

“Right,” Barry says, not bothering to disguise the relief in his voice. “Okay, thank god.”

He moves to start walking again, when Linda adds, “I mean, of course I already told Iris. She’s the one who went with me to the hospital to get the bird flu testing.”

Well, fuck.

-

He’s coming up with the next stage of his plan when one of his worst nightmares happens: in between one exhibit and the next, a child goes missing.

He’s doing a silent head count while the kids are crowding around the elephant skeleton when he notices. Heart starting to pound in his chest, he checks his list to confirm his suspicions: Ella Smith is missing. He sees Cisco hanging around at the other end of the room, and, making sure none of the parents notice, he gestures Cisco over.

“What’s up?” Cisco asks as he reaches Barry.

“One of the kids is missing,” Barry says, trying not to let his fear and stress show in his voice. “Can you take her parents to the main office? I’ll look for her.” He has a theory, but doesn’t want to bet too much on it in case his gut instinct is wrong.

“Of course,” Cisco says, his usual buoyant expression replaced by one of solemnity. “I’ll page all the staff as well.” Barry quickly points out Ella’s parents to Cisco, who are wandering around and apparently haven’t noticed their daughter’s disappearance yet.He then tells the rest of the group that the tour will have to end early today, but they’re welcome to either claim a refund at reception or wait for the next hourly tour. The children let out varying noises of complaint, but the adults are aware enough to notice how Cisco hurries away with Ella’s parents and shuffle away with each of their own kids.

Barry hears his pager sound with the alert Cisco will have sent, alerting each staff member of Ella’s description and making sure the security guards watch each person who tries to leave the museum. But he doesn’t bother to check as he makes his way through the museum, reaching a fast stride between running and walking.

He remembers Ella especially because she had been demanding to go back to the bookshop as they passed it, throughout the following exhibits. One of the main reasons he had noticed it was her missing was that he hadn’t heard her complaining since they had entered the mammals exhibit room.

He skids round the corner and into the bookshop. He’s never spent much time in it, especially since Iris started working there, and he certainly doesn’t have the leisure to pay enough attention to it now. It’s busy due to the mid-afternoon rush, and he’s awkwardly spinning and curving around people.

“Ella?” he calls, ignoring the funny looks people are giving him. “Ella, where are you?”

He spots Iris first, because apparently that’s just how his mind prioritises now. He spots her crouched down in a corner of the bookshop, by the pictures books and science encyclopaedias for young children. He hasn’t seen her smile like that, hasn’t seen her so unguarded in his presence, since they were teenagers and he blames this fact for faltering and stop a yard away from her. He looks to see what’s creating that expression on her face, and there: Ella.

He walks slowly, doesn’t want to spook either of them, and gets close enough to hear them.

“But don’t you need your mommy and daddy to buy the books for you?” Iris asks. She must’ve got the pager about the missing child, or at least had enough common sense to spot the little one by herself.

“I have pocket money!” Ella defends, and Barry sees that she’s clasping an encyclopaedia, large enough to cover her torso, about chemistry to her chest.

“I don’t doubt that,” Iris says soothingly, and Barry would not like to name the feeling that’s filling his chest right now. It’s probably just relief and adrenaline at finding Ella safe, that’s all.

As much as he wants to watch the scene a little longer, he can’t justify Ella’s parents worrying for a moment more than they have to. He calls Cisco on his mobile and says, “Yeah, we found her. I’ll bring her to the office now.”

Iris’ head whips up at his voice, and for a second, or just half of one really, he sees her look at him without the steel to her eyes he’s become used to. He crouches down to both their level and turns to Ella. “So, you were really that desperate to buy that book, huh?”

Ella shuffles her feet, as if it’s beginning to dawn on her how much she’s worried people. “Yeah,” she mumbles, hugging the book closer.

By now, Barry has a built in ‘that-child-is-about-to-cry’ sense, and, before that can happen, he says, “Tell you what, why don’t I buy the book from Miss West here for you? And then you can show your parents what a cool thing you were trying to get.”

Ella nods quickly, and he starts fishing in his back pocket for his wallet, guessing a book of that size will be at least twenty dollars. But before he can pull it out, he feels a hand on his thigh, stopping him.

His chin darts up as Iris says, quietly, “You don’t have to do that.” She quickly retracts her hand to ask Ella, “Can I look at that for a second?” She rips off the price label and scrunches it up before either Ella or Barry can read it, stuffing it into her jean pocket.

Barry wants to say something but he doesn’t have the words for it, so he nods, and then stands, taking hold of Ella’s hand. “Come on, Ella,” he says, cheerfully. “Let’s go show your mom and dad your new book.”

The parents are overjoyed to see their daughter; the mom cries even harder than she apparently had been already, and the dad tries to actually tip Barry a hundred dollars, which he quickly denies. He tries to apologies for losing her, but Wells just gestures for him and Cisco to leave, presumably before the parents realise they can probably get a lawsuit out of this.

Cisco asks as they leave the office, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Barry says, adding, “It was Iris who found her.”

And god, everything he’s feeling must be written all over his face if Cisco’s expression is anything to go by. Sure enough, Cisco warns, “I know you’ve been acting like this all a game, but be careful, yeah?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he lies.

“Sure.” Cisco eyes him. “Did you ever call that girl from the tour?”

“Who, Patty?” He clears his throat into his fist at Cisco’s knowing gaze, because to be perfectly honest, he had forgotten he even had her number. “No, not yet. I will.”

“Right,” Cisco says.

Barry decides not to admit to him that he can still feel the warmth of her hand on his thigh.

-

He lets himself into his parent’s house, balancing the casserole dish and Tupperware boxes in one arm while he uses his old keys (still complete with an attached Superman emblem in the door. He can hear the sounds of chatter and music from round back, but he goes through the house so he can deliver the food.

“Barry!” he hears, and sees his dad comes from the kitchen as he kicks the front door shut behind him. Henry wraps him in a hug, mindful of the dishes he’s brought with him, and then holds Barry at arm’s length. “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” says Barry, though making it to an event on time would be more noteworthy, and explains, “I burned the first casserole.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to cook anything,” his mom’s voice joins them, and he’s grabbed in another hug as Henry is fast enough to take the dishes away from between them.

“It’s fine, Mom,” he says as she pulls away. “It was no trouble, honestly.”

“No, really,” his dad winks. “We probably don’t have room for anything else on the table.”

The annual Allen barbeque is well-known around the neighbourhood, and Barry isn’t surprised at the amount of people in the backyard, or how much food they’ve brought. He’s suddenly winded by a small child slamming into his legs and gut

“Barry!” The blonde girl giggles. “Help, Clark is trying to catch me!”

Barry pretends to gasp, and bends down to lift Kara up into his arms, much to the bemusement of his parents. “Well, he won’t be able to catch you when you’re so tall!” He’s usually left in charge of looking after the children invited to the gathering, made up of neighbours and cousins and friends, which he certainly doesn’t mind.

True to Kara’s word, Clark, her cousin, who is accompanied by the Queen’s son (Barry forgets his name), comes skidding into the hallway with a red tablecloth tied around his neck as a cape. He stops at the sight of Barry, and he points at him. “Barry!” (Although Clark is currently struggling a little with his ‘r’s, and it comes out like ‘Bar-wee’).

His mom chuckles, and chides, “Clark, Ollie!” (Oliver Queen, Barry remembers, thanks to his mom, which saves him some embarrassment.) “No running inside.”

They look suitable chastised, until Barry says, “Guess we’ll have to run outside, then! Race you!”

Still holding Kara on the side of his hips, he strides quickly out through the patio doors and onto the garden. He smiles a greeting to his neighbours and family friends, who obviously aren’t particularly surprised to see him holding Kara, swinging her and pretending to help her fly above Clark and Ollie.

Clark is next to demand a turn at flying, and Barry quickly finds himself immersed in a game of make-believe with superheroes as the theme.

He’s pretending to chase a giggling Bruce around his parents’ guests’ feet when he hears a familiar cough in front of two pairs of familiar legs, and he looks up.

Joe and Iris West look bemusedly down at him.

(Bruce has hidden behind Iris’s legs, the sneaky brat, like he somehow knows she’s the one person Barry won’t just reach around.)

Barry coughs, and straightens. “Joe,” he greets, straight-faced. “Iris.” He hasn’t seen her at an Allen barbecue in years, and the sight of her in a pretty sundress in his backyard sparks a blossom of hope he knows better than to entertain.

She smiles politely enough as Joe smirks. “I thought you’d grown out of playing in the dirt, Barry. Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of professor now?”

Barry notices Iris blushing a little, and realises that she must have told him about his unofficial title at the museum. That bit of hope gets harder to push down, and he says, “Well, at least I don’t have a soccer ball with me this time, sir.”

Joe starts laughing at that, the memory of Barry attempting to practice for the school soccer team (after, of course, hearing Iris was interested in cheer-leading) and managing to kick it straight through the glass of Joe’s brand new greenhouse.

Bruce pipes up, already bored by the adult conversation, and tugs on Iris’ skirt to gain her attention. “Iris,” he says, further evidence of how close the neighbourhood is. “Come play with us!”

“You can be the damsel in distress, honey,” offers Joe, clearly expecting that’ll be the easiest role for Iris to fill, especially in her delicate-looking shoes.

But Iris manages to surprise Barry (yet again) by spinning around in a crouch and grabbing at Bruce’s sides, tickling him furiously. “I don’t think so! I’m the big baddie, coming for all you puny superheroes!”

Bruce laughs despite himself at the tickling, falling back onto the dirt (and getting grass stains over his new shirt - Barry will take care to be somewhere else when Mrs Wayne sees that) while protesting, “No! We’re not puny! No, stop!”

Barry forgets for a second that he’s supposed to be involved in the game as he watches Iris chase the kids around the lawn. He only remembers when he notices Joe watching him with that all-knowing look, and flushes with embarrassment. He doesn’t know whether it’s Joe’s detective instinct, or his own obviousness, or a mixture of the both, but he probably needs to get a fucking grip either way.

He ends up chasing all the kids and Iris around for at least the next half hour, feeling at least five years older every time he catches sight of Iris’ wide grin. He knows from experience and the smell of cooking meat simmering in the air that the food will be ready, so he’s trying to calm the kids with a game of hide and seek rather than tag. Except he’s genuinely lost Bruce and Clark, and is peering up at the apple tree and wondering how feasible it is that they could’ve climbed up there without him realising, when a shock of cold and wet douses him.

He spins, watered thoroughly down, to see the guilty duo laughing and holding the garden hose.

He grins, despite almost shivering with how the water drenches his torso, and opens his arms as if to hug Clark and Bruce and wet them as well. They run away, thankfully dripping the hose, and he shakes out his dripping hair, feeling slightly like a wet dog, before running his hands through it to push it up out of his eyes.

He probably looks ridiculous, but the more urgent matter is how his shirt is soaked through - he can hardly go back into the house like this, but he obviously needs a new shirt.

So he curls his fingers around the bottom hem and pulls it off in one slick motion.

He only realises after he’s topless that most of the garden party is watching him, laughing at his predicament.

Aunt Margery makes a wolf whistle but he knows whose reaction he’s looking for: Iris. He sees her standing separate from everyone else, holding Kara to her side and staring at him. They lock eyes, and god, Barry _can’t_ be imagining the electricity catching in the air between them.

She looks away, breaking first, and he smiles bashfully at his small audience, making an excuse about going upstairs to change. He borrows one of his old t-shirts he keeps at the house and makes his way back downstairs.

When he reaches the back yard again, everyone’s tucking in to the array of delicious food, the sun is shining, and sue him, he’s feeling optimistic. He’s sure he wasn’t imagining the stiff set of Iris’s shoulders and the heat in her eyes.

So when he sees her by the salad table, he casually makes his way over to her, reaching for the coleslaw at the same time she does. She falters and draws back her hand when she realises him next to her, and he hides away his smile.

“The kids are fun,” he starts.

“Yeah,” she says, and doesn’t expand. Okay, that’s still a little frostier than he was hoping, especially after the past half hour they spent together vanquishing superheroes, but he forges on.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he says. “You haven’t been the past couple of years.”

And then he sees her gaze shift away, and he feels his smile fade as she says, “Well, my dad said you weren’t coming this year.”

Barry feels very tired and defeated all of a sudden. “You really hate me that much, huh?”

The way she opens her mouth and then closes it says it all. He drops the spoon back into the coleslaw with perhaps more force than necessary.

“Fine.”

She looks pained, and really, Barry doesn’t see that she has any right to be. “I’m trying-”

“Well, don’t worry about it,” he replies, jaw tight. She starts to say something else, but he says, rather unconvincingly, “I think I heard my dad call me. See you around - or not, I guess.”

-

Work is somehow even more awkward. Cisco tries to talk to him about it, and even offers to evict Iris from their group, but Barry tells him it’s fine, he just needs time. (Though he can’t imagine how many weeks it’ll take for him to stop the twinge of hurt every time he sees her.)

He just wasn’t expecting hatred, no matter how much he had thought it through. He couldn’t imagine how she couldn’t move past one awkward night. He’s certainly managed to move on, and that night was one of the best in his life. His mood the following morning couldn’t even be dampened by Tony Woodward being his typical jackass self and stealing his phone. Her behaviour doesn’t match up with the kind Iris he remembered, the one who knows exists through watching her with others and through a conversation with his parents where they seemed to talk endlessly about ‘what a wonderful young woman that Iris West is, don’t you agree, Barry?’

He’s in the storage closet looking for a new name tag (one small child had grabbed it from him and proceeded to try and swallow it), rummaging around in the boxes when he hears, “Oh!” He recognises that voice, and sure enough, when he turns around, it’s Iris, standing in the doorway, illuminated by the light from the hallway.

“Uh, hey,” he replies, trying to at least sound politely indifferent.  

“I can come back,” she offers, gesturing behind her.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Barry says, turning back around to hide exactly how not fine he finds the idea of being in such a small space with her.

“Okay,” she says as he senses her move into the closet.

“Yeah, just make sure you don’t-” he stops as he hears the sound of the latch clicking shut. “Close the door,” he finishes lamely.

“Oh,” she says. He spins in the small space just in time to watch her jiggle at the handle, to no avail. “Oh, fuck.”

His thoughts exactly.

In the silence, and the dim light allowed through the frosted window of the door, she smacks her lips together and then offers, “I was just looking for the label maker.” Wordlessly, Barry reaches behind him, and then passes the label maker to her. She takes it, a little gingerly, and holds it close to her chest. “Thanks,” she says, quietly.

They’re both quiet, and the tension is palpable. Before the barbecue, Barry might have flattered himself to say that it was charged with chemistry, but now he knows better.

The thought of the barbecue is what gives him the brief jolt of courage, to speak into the dim silence. “Look, I just-” he almost chickens out as she fixes those bright eyes on him, but they’re stuck in a closet and he can’t pass up this opportunity to finally get the answers he wants. “I don’t understand why you still hate me.”

She obviously wasn’t expecting him to be so abrupt, but he watches her gaze steel and harden and adapt.

He recognises that expression, remembers that she stood up to bullies and teachers alike, so he quickly continues before she really gives him a piece of her mind (and makes him feel even smaller than this whole experience already has), “It was five years ago. I didn’t- Look, I’m sorry that it was so awful for you, but it was pretty great for me, which is selfish, so, I am sorry.”

It’s neither quite an apology nor a demand, a garbled mess of feelings somewhere between guarded and far too vulnerable.

She swallows, and her eyes are unreadable. He lets out a harsh exhale, drops his gaze to his feet as he settles with the fact that she’s not even going to reply to that. Then:

“Barry, I lost my virginity when I was sixteen and it really _was_ awful. It was painful and rushed and I cried when I got home.”

It’s a stunning confession, and it makes Barry feel terrible. His first thought is that she’s referring to their time together, before remembering they were eighteen, and he remembers her dating a couple of guys through high school. “I-” he tries, still looking at his feet, not sure why she’s bringing that up as a point of reference.

But she doesn’t let him finish, and he’s surprised at the emotion in her voice. “And the guy dumped me a week later. Do you know what that feels like?”

“I can imagine,” he says, a little hard, because he thinks it must feel something close to losing your virginity to a girl you’d had a terrible crush on for years, and then not speaking to her for the five years after the fact.

She lets out a little breath of humourless laughter. “Then I found myself falling in love with this dork who lived two houses down my street.”

His head snaps up at that. “What?”

She continues like he hadn’t interrupted, like she needs to get it all out at once else she won’t at all. “And then we spent this magical summer together, and I kissed him, and had sex with him, and then he never responded to my call. So I figured he had done the same thing, figured that was just what happened, that I would fall for guys and they’d use me and wouldn’t think twice about it.”

He feels like someone has hit him over the head with a rock, mind cycling round and round like a dulled police siren. His hands twitch towards her, longing to hold her despite how much he knows he wouldn’t comfort her, would probably disgust her.

Her eyes are watering, and she looks up, blinking to stop them from falling, and god, his heart aches. “And then I come here, and I think maybe I can move past it, but you’re here, and you still-” She makes a fast gesture up and down him. “All those feelings come back, and you’re doing all this- you’re making fun of me, with jokes about your big feet and wanting to talk about sex at the table in front of all these people like you enjoy it! Hitting on beautiful women and making sure I know it. Like you’re lording it above me, how stupid I was to think you cared.”

He’s shaking his head, but he can’t form any words, doesn’t know how to interrupt her.

“So, yeah,” she says, firm and easily mistaken for cold if he hadn’t just been given a glimpse through the cracks. “I think I’m going to need a little longer to get over it.”

“Iris,” he says, just willing for her to look at him, because, god, everything she wants the answers to is written all over his face. “I thought- you never called me.”

“Yes, I did,” she says sharply. “I called your cell phone. I left a voice message on your answer phone. So fuck that for an excuse.”

He shakes his head, trying to think of a way to convince her when he’s struck by an awful memory. “Tony stole my phone.”

She glowers at him. “So?”

He knows it doesn’t sound at all plausible, sounds like the kind of excuse the jackass she believes he is would come up with. “He stole my phone the day after we- you know. He saw me coming from your house and, I mean, god, Iris, my grin that day could’ve lit up the sun, you have no idea. He stole my phone, just to fuck with me I guess.  I had to get a replacement and, I don’t know, your message must have not come through.”

He remembers that phone, it’s every corner and plastic part, because he spent the following week checking it and double checking it for any kind of notification from her, the contact saved, embarrassingly, as ‘ _Iris <3_’.

“That’s a crap excuse,” she says, still looking mad.

He pulls a face like, _yeah, I know_ , and says, “It’s the truth. Iris, I would never- I thought you just never wanted to speak to me again. I figured I was just that terrible in bed. That’s the only reason I was being lewd these past weeks - I was trying to prove to you that I had improved.”

She rolls her eyes, but he’s watching her closely enough to see the twitch of a smile on the corner of her lips.

“Which was stupid. So stupid,” he continues, and braves a step closer to her.

“Really stupid,” she agrees. She lets out a small laugh that encourages him to take another, tiny little step across the space. “God, Barry, that peach was _obscene_.”

He grins, comes close enough that he has to duck his head to look at her, and he could wrap his arms around her if he wanted to. He adopts a more solemn tone, because he needs to say this next part right. “Iris, I was in love with you. I thought that was obvious.”

She directs this next, small question to his chest: “Then why didn’t you call me? Or just walk over to my house?”

“I was scared,” he admits gently. “You were so out of my league, I just. I thought you’d laugh in my face. I was afraid it didn’t mean anything to you.”

“Well,” she says, turning away as if he can’t see the glimmer of water in her eyes by the light of the hallway. “It did. So.”

“So,” Barry echoes, because if all his dreams have somehow come true and Iris West is telling him she wants him – or at least, she did, all those years ago – he’s not going to chicken out again. “So, can I start again?”

“That depends,” she says, and he must be imagining the playful lilt considering how shitty he must have seemed to her. “What would you have said to me? If you had called me, like you should have.”

“Like I should have,” he agrees. He tentatively brings up his hands, so carefully, and gently cups her elbows, where her hands fold protectively across her chest. “Well, if I knew what I knew now, first thing is that I still wouldn’t have called.”

“You wouldn’t?” He feels her tense.

He shakes his head, can’t help the smile. “I would’ve marched straight to your house to tell you in person. I would’ve told you that night changed my life, and it was amazing, and you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Are the most beautiful thing,” he corrects.

She visibly relaxes, and peeks up at him. “Well, that would have been pretty smooth for an eighteen-year-old.” He laughs at that, and she joins in, much to his pleased relief.

Then, because his pride is still somehow a delicate thing, he adds, “I mean, I _have_ improved, just for the record. I really wasn’t just being an ass. I’ve been informed I’m a lot better at the whole sex thing now.”

He does realise that referring to it as ‘the whole sex thing’ probably doesn’t inspire much confidence.

But to his continued surprise, she reaches to curl a fist in his shirt and pulls him closer. “Barry,” she says, and god, the way she says his name sends shivers down his spine. “I don’t know how you got it into your head that I hated that night. But believe me when I say you were already pretty damn good.”

He’s not sure who kisses whom.

-

So, his first time with Iris West is in her bedroom when he’s eighteen, and it’s _amazing_.

His second time with her is in a supply closet when he’s twenty three, and man, he was not prepared for how much she’s apparently improved as well.


End file.
